


Reach for the sky and with every breath tear a hundred veils

by tinystreetlamp



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Same Age, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Feelings Realization, Female Harry Potter, Female Tom Riddle, Fluff, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle Attend Hogwarts Together, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Minor Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott - Freeform, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tom's mother is a mafia boss, her other mother is Merope Gaunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinystreetlamp/pseuds/tinystreetlamp
Summary: or: they be lesbians
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 12
Kudos: 160
Collections: Tomarry Reverse Big Bang 2020





	Reach for the sky and with every breath tear a hundred veils

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta, [Ari (wishopenastar on ao3).](/users/Wishopenastar)  
> You are so so awesome.
> 
> ~~excuse my british/american english smoothie, I'm not a native speaker.~~
> 
> (title is a quote from the poet Rumi)
> 
> warnings for: non graphic murder, mentioned domestic abuse (nothing as bad as in canon)
> 
> Find the art  
> [here on tumblr](https://hellomisterriddle.tumblr.com/post/628093641872769025)  
> [here on instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CErv0PsDTVN/)

Harry’s life could be classified in two parts. Before and after, or: the first time she met her soulmate and the second time she met her soulmate.

The first time, they met on the Hogwarts Express like so many other witches before them. Tom Riddle had smirked in all her eleven year old glory, trying to raise only one eyebrow and raising both. It had been a disaster.

The second time Harry met Tom, she was in a dark alley in summer, about to be beaten up by her cousin’s gang - which, like, is a whole other story to unpack. But the alley was occupied by people in suits with guns and sunglasses despite the late hour, and Harry watched Tom’s mother shoot a man in the head. And then Tom turned to look at Harry from her place next to her mother, one perfect eyebrow perfectly arched.

And Harry? She knew she was fucked.

“Uh,” Harry said smartly.

Tom Riddle raised her arm and waved, her wide sleeve falling to her elbow, revealing dark letters on her forearm. Her Soulmark. Also known as _Harry Jamie Potter,_ written in uneven, bold handwriting that resembled Harry’s real life chicken scratch.

Harry awkwardly waved back, but unlike the wide magician’s sleeves Tom was wearing, Harry had been wearing wristbands ever since she was little. In this moment, when Tom’s mother’s eyes focused on her arm, Harry, for the first time, felt self conscious about her covered Soulmark.

“Fancy seeing you here, Harry,” Tom drawled, and like a Chinese Streetwear Tiktok (without the music) she closed the space between them in a handful of graceful steps, stopping next to Harry’s shoulder. Her eyes never left Harry.

“What brings you to Surrey?” Harry asked, trying to sound nonchalant - unbothered, cool, like she had her life in order and the situation under control and everything wasn't spinning and she wasn’t about to be catapulted out of the carousel that was her life.

Tom’s eyes wandered past Harry to Dudley and his gang, who had probably in their life never been this quiet. “Business,” Tom answered, her voice like velvet.

This seemed to be Dudley’s cue to leave, but Harry didn’t stop looking at Tom to see them running away. Instead she noticed Tom’s subtle signals to her people to not follow them. Tom’s eyeliner was smudged into a hint of green eyeshadow, with tiny silver glitter pieces like highlighter in the corner of her eyes, and frankly Harry had never considered the idea of Tom and - anything, really. Soulmarks didn’t mean anything.

Harry’s parents weren’t soulmates, her father even claimed to never have met his soulmate. Growing up homeschooled, Harry had never considered that a soulmate was anything but what her parents told her - a magical connection that didn’t even do anything, the name of one (or sometimes two) names written on your skin, somewhere on your body. Soulmates don’t always fall in love, and love can be found with someone who isn’t your soulmate.

Needless to say, when she met Draco Malfoy in Diagon Alley, they had both been horrified at each other’s parents. Harry was horrified, because Draco’s parents were soulmates who had been engaged since they were babies, and Draco was horrified because Harry’s mother had left her soulmate behind.

Tom, Harry realised, had always treated Harry like her soulmate. Even when Harry directly told Tom to not talk to her about soulmates, even when Harry covered up her soulmark as if the whole school hadn’t already seen her name on Tom’s arm. Proud, never uncomfortable Tom, the daughter of Merope Gaunt and a muggle noble. The muggle noble was dead and Merope Gaunt married to his muggle twin sister, Melania Riddle, who had always had a peculiar tattoo on her neck.

Melania Riddle, who happened to have just shot a man in the head in a dark alley in Surrey.

Who was looking at Harry with curiosity.

Harry gulped.

“Harry?” Melania Riddle asked, putting her gun away in an inside pocket. “Harry Potter?”

“Uh, yes, Ma’am,” Harry answered. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” Because Harry may be certain that Tom’s mum would not shoot a sixteen year old witch in a muggle area, Harry had still witnessed a crime, and manners didn’t hurt anybody.

Melania Riddle nodded. Her eyes fell to Harry’s left underarm, the wristguard holding her sleeve in place. Her face remained emotionless. “Tom, I suppose you won’t come home tonight?”

Tom smiled. “Maybe later, mum. I’ll make sure Harry gets home safely first.”

“That’s my girl,” Melania Riddle nodded approvingly just as two sleek black cars came to a stop at the entrance to the alley. Harry could only watch, slightly awed, how a few short orders resulted in everyone packing up and leaving in the cars, taking the corpse with them. Someone even poured a bucket of water over the spot of blood on the street, not enough to wash the blood away but to make it less obvious that someone had died.

“You can close your mouth now, Harry,” Tom teased, a small smirk on her face.

Harry realised that her mouth was in fact open and quickly closed it, turning away. Maybe the dark would hide the heat rushing to her face?

Tom didn’t seem to expect an answer, but the quiet night settled over them anyway.

When Harry turned to Tom again, Tom had a far away look on her face, but for some reason Harry thought Tom had never once looked away from her.

“I’ll walk you home,” Tom finally said.

“You don’t need to,” Harry quickly replied, “I know my way around.”

The corner of Tom’s mouth twitched downwards. “And your friends from earlier? We’re sixteen, we still can’t use magic outside of school, remember?”

Yes, unfortunately, Harry did. “I’ll be fine, Tom.”

Tom closed her eyes, shoulders tensing. “I’m only offering.”

Harry hesitated. Tom had always been kind to her. They weren’t friends, there were too many politics involved - what with them being in different houses, with their families opposing in the Ministry, with Tom so obviously treating Harry as her soulmate and Harry trying her best to ignore the lingering eyes and not treat Tom any different from other strangers.

And Tom - maybe it was the cold light from the single streetlamp at the mouth of the alley, maybe the way her smirk had brought a spark to her calm grey eyes, maybe it was the spark being gone now that they were alone - Tom looked ethereal, and lonely.

Yeah, okay, Harry was projecting. Just because _she_ had had a miserably lonely summer didn’t mean everyone else had, too.

“It’s just,” Harry started talking, trying to soften her voice (she’d have done the same to a stranger, right? She’d offer an explanation and an apology, and they’d both move on, and never talk about it again, right?), “my parents are spending august in America, celebrating their anniversary. It’s a parents thing. I’m staying with my aunt and her family.”

Tom’s face hesitantly lit up. “I’ll walk you to your aunt’s house, then.”

“What about you?” Harry wrung her hands until a sharp pang of pain in her pinky and ring finger made her loosen her hold.

“I’ll call a taxi,” Tom smiled. “Or my family’s driver. Mum probably has someone around, in case I need a ride. It’s no problem.”

Harry’s stomach turned. Well, that was a whole lot of feelings to unpack, that she wasn’t going to unpack. “I’m not planning on returning to my aunt’s house. Tonight. Or this month. I’m on my way to Hermione’s.”

Tom paused. “I was under the impression that Miss Granger lived in London.”

“She does,” Harry agreed quickly. How should she explain? “My ‘friends,’ from earlier, that was my cousin.”

A dark look briefly crossed Tom’s face, but it was gone in a moment. “I’ll call my family’s driver and drive you to London, then.”

“No, no, that’s too much. You don’t have to…” Harry met Tom’s eyes and shut up. There was no way Tom would leave her alone now. “Only to the train station, please. I can get on the first train.”

“Do you even have money on you?” Tom shook her head and stepped closer. “You can come to my place. We have enough space, and you can stay until your parents return, or floo to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning.”

Tom’s eyes were focused on her, and for the first time, Harry didn’t want to turn away, she wanted to hold those eyes and make them spark. So Harry nodded, and Tom immediately pulled her phone from her back pocket and called someone, never once breaking eye contact. Harry would have blushed, but it was sparks that she felt along her spine, not embarrassment.

Thirty seconds later a silver car quitely arrived, and Harry didn’t even protest Tom’s hand on her wrist, leading her towards the car and opening the back door. Harry welcomed Tom’s warmth as she got in after her, and decided to stay in the middle seat, thigh on thigh with Tom.

“Take us home,” Tom told the driver, who nodded and started driving.

Cool air conditioning made Harry shiver, so she turned to Tom, letting her head drop on her shoulder. Tiredness settled over her. Gone was the adrenaline rush of sneaking out of that cursed house, of running into Dudley’s gang, of seeing Tom’s mum and understanding perfectly where Tom learned to hold herself like - that, like she did. Tom had refused to leave her alone, and Tom was warm. Hogwarts house rivalries couldn’t be farther away from a night drive through Surrey, really. What did it matter?

“Do your parents know your aunt is like this?” Tom asked quietly.

“No,” Harry mumbled. “My aunt and uncle act like everything is fine in front of my parents, otherwise they’d never be allowed to babysit me. Mum just never believed me when I told her my aunt dislikes me, and it just… escalated, I guess.”

Harry fell asleep to the scent of Tom’s shampoo.

* * *

So what if Harry didn’t leave in the morning.

So what if Harry stayed a week.

So what if Harry only flooed home on the thirty first of august to get her school trunk and go last minute shopping in Diagon Alley, purposefully missing Hermione by a day.

So what if when Harry’s parents came home late on the last day of august, Harry nodded when they asked if she’d had a good time at Privet Drive, and so _what if_ Harry found a quiet compartment near the end of the train and let down the blinds, focusing on giving Hedwig all the attention she missed giving her in the last month.

The Hogwarts Express slowly rolled out of the station and the loud noises from the platform faded into the comforting noises of the train.

Quiet was good. Being alone was good. Missing Tom was - she didn’t miss Tom. Spending twenty four hours away from Tom didn’t make her miss Tom like a puppy misses their owner when the owner leaves them in front of the grocery store because dogs aren’t allowed in the grocery store. And comparing herself to puppies was normal.

Angrily, Harry ripped open a chocolate frog packet and stuffed the wriggling chocolate into her mouth, swallowing it whole.

“Harry!” Hermione stood in the door to the compartment, hair standing in five different directions, her face still sleep rumpled and clothes askew. “You usually wait for the magic in the chocolate to fade…”

Harry swallowed and cleared her throat. “You have drool on your chin.”

 _“WHAT,”_ Hermione screeched, threw herself and her cat and her trunk into the compartment and promptly went about slamming the door closed and closing the blinds on the door and the window. She summoned a small mirror out of her trunk and gaped at her face - a crease from her pillow on her cheek, drool in the corner of her mouth and on her chin, eyes small and slightly puffy, hair: like she just woke up. “I literally woke up fifteen minutes ago,” she sighed and fell back into the seat across from Harry with a dramatic hair flip.

“I can see that,” Harry replied, but before she knew it she was laughing. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, dumbass,” Hermione smiled. She stumbled to her feet to hug Harry, “but I’m going to be in the bathroom for just five minutes, so you'll have to wait to tell me the tea about your shitty aunt, okay?”

Harry blushed. Right. “Yeah, actually…”

Hermione held up a finger, “Harry! I really need to brush my teeth, like, now. Or else I’ll die.”

“How did you even make it to King’s Cross in time?” Harry asked, but Hermione had already spread the contents of her trunk over half the seats and grabbed what she needed, vanishing as quickly as she’d come. That was just Hermione, sometimes.

Harry smiled as she started picking up Hermione’s things and putting them back into her trunk, and scratched Crookshank’s chin when he declared Hermione’s open trunk his new kingdom. Harry picked up Hermione’s Gryffindor tie that she’d dropped in her hasty exit and placed it next to Crookshanks on top of the books.

Being from a wizarding family, Harry had dressed in her school uniform before flooing to platform nine and three quarters, so she picked up the chocolate frog card in her quest to make the compartment look presentable, and threw Dumbledore into the tiny waste bin in the corner. She was just about to eat another chocolate frog when there was a polite knock on the door, before it opened to show no one other but Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle had always been beautiful. Of course. Harry had known that, as had the entire world. Her dark hair that artfully framed her face, grey eyes lined by dark eyeliner and eyeshadow of ever changing colours (except red, blue and yellow), the lips that were almost always tinted - Harry had watched, actually, six entire days ago, how Tom had done her makeup and then offered to do Harry - Harry’s makeup, that is - and feeling Tom softly dab the lipstick across her lips had been an experience Harry had done her best to keep out of her mind.

Today, Tom looked like she always did in school: hair artfully falling around her face, green and silver eyeshadow, eyebrows on fleek, lips a light shade of red. Slytherin tie. Smiling at Harry, a spark in her eyes.

“Harry,” Tom greeted. “I missed you.”

“We saw each other yesterday,” Harry replied, blushing in embarrassment, because all she had done the last twenty four hours was missing Tom.

“May we come in?”

“Yeah of course,” Harry answered and barely registered the ‘we’ when Tom sat in front of Harry and cooed at Hedwig, and Theodore Nott closed the compartment door after himself.

Theodore Nott was the best chaser on Slytherin’s Quidditch team, ranked third in their year in academics (or second, as Hermione and Tom tended to share first place), and above all, Theodore Nott was Hermione’s soulmate. He had Hermione’s name written on his collarbone, which was why he never wore a tie unless Professor McGonnagall reminded him. Just so his mark was visible.

(And, Harry thought, to flash Hermione his naked chest as often as possible. The sad thing was, it obviously worked.)

“Excited for sixth year?” Tom smiled at Harry, a real smile, and Harry forgot to breathe.

“I heard we’ll have a new Defence teacher,” Theo said casually, leaning back, eyes fixed on Crookshanks in front of him. “My mum has tea with her sometimes, apparently.”

The door slammed open. “Harry, have you seen my tie? I can’t believe I forgot my... tie…”

Hermione’s voice grew small and vanished with her last word, eyes wide as she noticed who was with Harry. Her shirt was partly unbuttoned, showing off dark letters on her collarbone. Theo gaped at her, and before they could both blush and die of the situation they found themselves in, Harry got up and handed Hermione her tie, effectively blocking Theo from her sight.

“I,” Hermione started. She blinked at Harry.

Harry shrugged. No, she had no idea what was going on.

“I’ll be back,” Hermione whispered, and flustered, she left the compartment.

“Uh,” Harry said and scratched the back of her head, subtly fluffing up her short hair. “She overslept and almost missed the train? I think?”

Theo opened and closed his mouth, looking at the door where Hermione had vanished.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything but the perfect school uniform,” Tom said. “Maybe it’s because OWLs are over? We can relax this year.”

“No, we can’t,” Theo hissed. “NEWTs are next year, _do you want to fail?”_

Tom grimaced at Harry. “Do you understand why I didn’t want to go shopping for school supplies with him?”

Harry laughed. “Owl order is magical.”

Hermione chose that moment to come back, looking perfectly composed, shirt buttoned up and tie in place.

“Your hair doesn’t even look like you almost missed the train anymore,” Harry greeted her.

“At least I wasn’t wallowing in self pity after a month with my evil aunt and eating chocolate frogs while they’re still wriggling,” Hermione shot back, taking a seat next to Harry and directly in front of Theo. Crookshanks meowed and claimed her lap as his new throne.

Harry blushed. “Chocolate makes you happy.”

Tom smirked. “I’d have liked to see that.”

“And, uh,” Harry said, smiling nervously at Tom before turning to Hermione. “Actually I only spent like a week with my evil aunt.”

“You have an evil aunt?” Theo asked. “That’s so cool. Draco has an evil aunt too, but like she’s literally in prison so it’s not _that_ cool…” Theo looked everywhere in the compartment except at Hermione.

Hermione ignored him. “Sooo… you weren’t at your aunt’s place, you weren’t at home because then you would have just come to my place, and you weren’t with me…”

“I was with Tom,” Harry said, smiling at Tom, drinking in the spark in her eyes.

“Wait, what?” Theo turned to his friend. “We wrote letters all the time in summer, how come you didn’t mention this?”

If Tom were the person to easily blush, she’d have blushed now. But she wasn’t, she just turned to look out of the window with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I wasn’t sure if Harry would want -”

Harry, again, felt very stupid. Did Tom think that as soon as they were in Hogwarts, Harry would go back to ignoring her? “Tom,” she said. “We’re friends. Of course you can tell your other friends about me.”

“Friends,” Tom looked at her hands, shoulders relaxing, “that’s good.”

All throughout the journey to Hogwarts, Hermione side eyed Harry when the conversation slowed, but the four of them had a lot to talk about. From OWL scores to classes they would be taking, from teachers to summer homework, from Harry’s parent’s vacation to Tom’s parent’s jobs, to Theo’s intellectual questions about muggle teeth hygiene, to rumours about the new teacher.

When they separated in the great hall to go to their respective house tables, Harry wondered why they hadn’t been this close last year.

“Why is this the first time we’ve hung out with our soulmates,” Hermione wondered quietly.

Harry pretended she didn’t hear, and Hermione didn’t push it. But Harry knew Hermione would keep thinking until they’d talk about it. Later, maybe.

* * *

The next day, Harry was woken up by Hermione jumping onto her bed.

“What,” she groaned, reaching for her glasses. Hermione handed them to her.

“You and Tom?”

“Just ask me this, without asking how I am or telling me good morning, ‘mione…” Harry pulled her blanket over herself.

“Good morning, Harry, how are you, Harry! So, you and Tom?” Hermione ripped the blanket out of Harry’s hands.

Harry groaned. “We’re like… friends. And you know she’s the most attractive student in Hogwarts. Everybody knows this.”

Hermione paused. “Uh, I didn’t?”

“‘Mione,” Harry said, tiredly sitting up. “Have you _seen_ Tom Riddle’s face?”

Hermione just wrinkled her face.

Harry sighed. “You know, the way all girls are more attractive than boys, the way Tom is just the prettiest girl ever?”

Hermione wrinkled her face harder.

“Like, when she smiles? Not the smirk, though that’s attractive too, obviously, but when she like, really smiles?” Harry cleared her throat. “Anyway, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I have learned two things right now, but not the thing I wanted to know. So, you and Tom?”

“Hermione!” Harry whisper shouted, “The rumours about her muggle family being some sort of mafia are true, I accidentally ran into them in Surrey, Tom was there, Tom offered to let me stay at her place for a night because she’s too good for this world, and then I just… stayed.”

Hermione grinned. “So are you together now?”

“What?”

“She’s your soulmate,” Hermione pointed out.

“Soulmates doesn’t mean anything,” Harry replied.

“Do they?” Hermione raised a brow and for a second she scarily resembled Tom. “What do we actually know about soulmates?”

Harry stopped. “It’s a cult?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Yes, everyone in Gryffindor keeps saying that, duh. But in the eyes of a muggle, so are magicians, and in the eyes of an atheist muggle, so are religions.”

“I guess,” Harry said. “Was that all you wanted to talk about? Also, what do you mean, when you said you learned two things from our conversation?”

“One, you’re a lesbian,” Hermione said, “and two, you’re in love with Tom Riddle.”

She stood and walked away, leaving Harry gaping like a fish after her.

“We’ll be late to breakfast!” Hermione called over her shoulder.

Harry realised the sun was already up, and their roommates gone - what?

* * *

Harry decided to skip breakfast and take a shower instead. She was officially a NEWT student, and she was going to use all complaining about lack of sleep privileges she earned in the last five years of Hogwarts to get out of social interactions, if she had to.

She met Hermione at the entrance to the great hall ten minutes before class, and Hermione didn’t even blink, she just handed her her time table and a piece of treacle tart in a napkin.

“We have history first, with that new teacher, Professor Peverell,” Hermione muttered. “Come on.”

Harry walked one step behind Hermione. “Um. You’re right but I don’t yet know how to… anything. By the way.”

“I know,” Hermione said. “No pressure. I’m here if you need me, yeah?”

“Obviously,” Harry replied. And that was it.

The history classroom was on the third floor, with windows facing north and windows facing south, but that wasn’t unusual in the castle.

Unusual were the black curtains framing the windows, and unusual was the giant black cat lying over the teacher’s desk, but then - this was the first year of history without Professor Binns, and considering the other members of staff’s tendency to dramatics (cough, McGonagall and Snape and Dumbledore) this was actually quite normal.

This class was small, as it was a NEWT class, so all four houses were present. Harry and Hermione weren’t the first in the room, but their preferred second row was still free, where they put their books on the table and Harry finally unwrapped her treacle tart.

Tom chose that exact moment to walk into the room, and Harry, mouth full of treacle tart, wished a whole would open up and swallow her. Hogwarts was magic, this wasn’t impossible. Tom, however, just smiled - that real, big smile that Harry had described to Hermione, and dragged Theo to sit behind Harry and Hermione.

“Good morning, everyone,” a soft, deep voice greeted the class. A woman in dark green and black robes strode inside, the door clicking shut behind her.

In complete silence she walked to the front and scratched the ears of the giant cat (that may actually be a panther) and smiled at the loud purring and scary yawn.

“I am Lady Peverell, your history professor for this year. Don’t call me professor, please stick to my title. Professor makes me think of old men, I don’t recommend doing that.”

Polite chuckles and whispers filled the class. Lady Peverell smiled, and Harry thought she saw canines flashing.

“I am older than I look, and care little for what the Ministry has to say. Some of you may have heard stories of me, as I may have taught their grandparents, the last time I decided it was time to meet young people.” Lady Peverell laughed softly. “And they may have heard stories of me, told by their grandparents. Some are true, some are not. Questions?”

“Is it true you’re an immortal necromancer?”

Pansy Parkinson smacked her hand on her lips, realising she’d said it out loud.

Lady Peverell smiled. “Death and I are currently something that is known in this century as a, ahem, ‘complicated relationship status.’ As for the necromancy: yes, I practice necromancy occasionally. Don’t you?”

Pansy blinked. “I… I, no, I don’t. Necromancy isn’t taught at Hogwarts.”

“Anymore,” Lady Peverell agreed. “No, it’s not. But the art of bringing something back to life is not lost to magic, Miss Parkinson. Or else, how do you explain Herbology?”

“Lady Peverell,” Hermione piped up. “Could you elaborate on this?”

“I will, next month,” Lady Peverell agreed. “I’m sure you wondered why I don’t require you to buy a book for this class. We will learn the important parts by doing, and I will assign you subjects that you will have to work on and then present to the class, and any required reading that isn’t in the Hogwarts Library will be provided by me.”

“What other subjects will we cover?” Hermione asked, her feather dripping ink onto her page.

“Rituals, Blood Magic, Wandless Magic, Theory of Modern Magic, and if the time allows, I’d like to borrow you over winter break and spring break to visit one or two schools of magic on different continents.” Lady Peverell grinned. “I’m still waiting for a response from the schools I wrote to, but it’s best if you don’t make other plans for your breaks and cancel the ones you already made. Further questions?”

Harry swallowed. That was a lot of slightly illegal to highly illegal information that Lady Peverell planned on sharing. But other schools? Hell yeah. The class seemed to think along the same lines.

“Very well. You can always ask questions in my classes, and I am available for private discussion during my office hours. Please feel free to reach out if you feel like you’re having trouble with the assigned topics. Today, though, we will start with the obvious. What is a soul? How do Soulmarks exist? Tell me everything you know about soulmates.”

Lady Peverell smiled at the class, but at the sudden quiet, her smile slowly slipped and her eyes narrowed.

“Um,” Draco Malfoy started, and Harry kind of wanted to hug him for never being able to shut up. “It’s magic. Obviously, well. The magic itself is prophetic magic, like Divination. That’s how it knows the names and handwriting of the respective soulmate or soulmates.”

“That’s a start,” Lady Peverell nodded. “What else?”

“There’s Plato’s theory of the soul,” Theo said.

“Also a start,” Lady Peverell agreed, “and also your assigned homework this week. At the end of the class you’ll receive a text to summarize and interpret. What else?”

Hannah Abbott cleared her throat. “Headmaster Dumbledore discourages talk of soulmates, Lady Peverell.”

Lady Peverell shrugged. “Albus Dumbledore lost his soulmate himself. Being soulmates obviously doesn’t guarantee anything. As I said, my soulmate and I are currently ‘complicated.’ But what are soulmates, really?”

“The person whose magic speaks to yours like nothing else,” Tom spoke up softly. “Like how the moon moves the sea, how the earth turns and spins around the sun. Muggle physics.”

“Gravity,” Lady Peverell nodded. “You know your soulmate.” She didn’t wait for Tom’s answer, but turned to the class. “Having a soulmate does not necessarily mean they will be the person you’ll fall in love with and start a family with, and it does not mean that choice is taken from you. Nothing is set in stone. The name on your body is a gift, a gift of companionship in a universe that’s growing colder. To understand the concept of soul magic, we will start at the beginning. Have you ever heard of what is known among non magical people as the Big Bang? Your astronomy curriculum focuses on the magical properties of this solar system, and to be honest it’s quite outdated. The formation of the universe…”

* * *

Harry’s head spun and she felt like she could sleep for a week after history ended and Lady Peverell left them each with a few pages of Plato’s writing, the giant plack cat (panther) following Lady Peverell out of the room.

Harry softly hit her forehead to the desk. “Hermioneeeeeee…”

“Give me a second,” Hermione muttered through gritted teeth. She had written pages upon pages of notes, with coloured highlights and notes as to what to research in which order. “Fascinating…”

“My _brain_ just expanded,” Harry whined.

“In a positive direction, I hope?” Tom’s voice made Harry look up. Tom stood next to her, Slytherin green eyeshadow on her lids, grey eyes warm.

“Yeah,” Harry reached out for Tom’s hand, like she’d started doing in the last week she spent with Tom. Cool air hit her wrists, and Harry looked at their hands. She’d forgotten to wear a wristband after her shower, and the shirt she wore under her robe was short sleeved. A few letters of Tom’s name were out in the open. Harry didn’t move.

The thing: Hermione was usually right. And it wasn’t like Harry hadn’t known anything that Hermione had said this morning, she just… hadn’t thought about it. Like this.

Harry smiled up at Tom.

Hermione slammed her pile of parchments into her bag. Her chair screeched over the marble floors. “We’ll be late to potions.”

 _“You_ were the one still taking notes!” Harry quickly let go of Tom to grab her own stuff, running after Hermione, who was already halfway to the door, and Theo, who stared after her with heart eyes.

“We have potions too!” Tom yelled, but Harry and Hermione were already out of the door.

Tom and Theo caught up to them fast, and together they speedwalked to the dungeons. Maybe Snape had tripped on his coat and was late to his own class?

A girl could hope.

Needless to say, Snape hadn’t tripped, and no hole opened up to swallow Harry when she had to describe the smell of Tom’s shampoo to the whole class as punishment, because how could she have known what the fuck that potion was?

“Who even reads ahead in class,” Harry grumbled when her own potion turned vibrant pink while Tom’s, Hermione’s and Theo’s looked exactly like the board showed.

She missed three very judgemental glares, but she did catch Tom whispering, “I’m so in love with you, please never change.”

And, well, if Tom kissed her in the library, maybe Harry would (pretend to) start reading ahead in class, too. Sixth year was going to be great.

**Author's Note:**

> (Lady Peverell’s first name is Gideon)  
> (special thanks to my sister who didn't mind me invading her room and playing one of those kpop-song-on-repeat-for-one-hour videos on youtube, for an entire hour)
> 
> Find me here:  
> [thespacebetweenworlds on tumblr](https://thespacebetweenworlds.tumblr.com)  
> [tinystreetlamp on instagram](https://www.instagram.com/tinystreetlamp/)
> 
> Find the artist here:  
> [hellomisterriddle on tumblr](https://hellomisterriddle.tumblr.com)  
> [riddlesdiary on instagram](https://www.instagram.com/riddlesdiary/)


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